So who do we think the greatest orator of all time was? Or the top 5?

>>2584516
There is absolutely zero way to compare the oratory of people who are so separated in time that no living person heard both.

Written records mean fuck all, oratory is not a writing skill, and manymost orators revise and extend their remarks when writing them up.

1. Dylan
2. Dylan
3. Dylan
4. Dylan
5. Dylan

Think about it.

Patrick Henry

Edmund Blackadder

>>2584553
This. The skills of an orator must be witnessed, since oratory is not only about what words are being used but how the words are delivered.

Primary sources, many of whom never witnessed Cicero giving a speech, say that he was a great orator. There's not much else to go by.

Hitler convinced an entire nation to basically an hero.
GOAT orator desu

>>2584516
what was Cicero's oratory style like anyway?

>>2584516
Unironically Hitler. He had basically zero power or influence when he began but convinced the second most powerful country on Earth to basically blow itself up based on his charisma. The NDSAP floundered when he wasn't around and only returned to power after he was release from jail.

>>2584959
He was a follower of the Attic school of Oratory, which stressed precision, directness and a more formal approach, as opposed to the florid, ornamented and somewhat over-blown Asiatic style.

Which is not to say that the Attic style was dry and emotionless, Cicero's surviving speeches (as he wrote them up after the fact, likely adding what he wished he had thought of n time to say, and deleting anything that fell flat) have plenty of humor, often sarcastic, and his attacks are vicious.

In the end though, much of oratory is in the delivery, so knowing precisely what his, or any classical orator's, style was like is ultimately unknowable.

an orator is someone who's really good at oral right? it's probly me

>>2585271
Gonna need some proof so that an unbiased, peer reviewed consensus can be formed.

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William Jennings Bryan deserves a mention. He was one of the last great orator in US politics, near the end of the era when people would turn out to hear a great speechmaker to admire the speaking, even if they did not agree with it.

"You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"

It's a shame his association with the Scopes Trial tends to tar him as a buffoon. he was not, though he was clearly on the doomed side of many a fight.

>>2584516
>Kikero
he ate many

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>>2584554
Youre right.

He SPITS hot fire.

How can you rate an orator you have never heard speak it's like rating football players but never seen them play